-- is being sold to family-owned Kitson & Company Ltd. for an undisclosed figure.

LPG is also advising American Express that the long running business association that it has enjoyed with LPG will end as soon as the US firm can find a suitable replacement representative in Bermuda.

In whirlwind business negotiations that were opened and shut within four days last week, it was agreed in principle that the LPG Travel arm would be taken over by Kitson, protecting the jobs of half a dozen agents and some administrative staff.

Late Friday, the LPG board met for a final confirmation of a plan that will take them out of the travel business after 40 years. Staff were advised of the deal at quitting time.

Kitson president Mr. Kirk Kitson has disclosed the combination of the LPG business and that of Kitson Travel would automatically make the new Kitson Travel Service the number two travel firm in the country, with estimated gross sales of about $12 million.

The sale marks the end of LPG as an operating entity. Last year, its deposit company and real estate arms were merged with those of the Bank of Bermuda to form Bermuda Home Ltd.

Mr. Kitson said: "It is a great opportunity for us to expand. It gives us critical mass. We are a little too small, at the moment, to be attractive to tour operators as a general sales agent.

"Our travel business has been regarded by ourselves until this point as a service to the community, not so much as a business.

"But when we add the LPG business to our business, we have a significant market share. We will be competitive with 11 or 12 percent of the market, which is good market share. It will be a profitable business.

"Our travel department is not incorporated right now, but we will incorporate the business probably as Kitson's Travel Service Ltd. with a board of directors, and run the business in a much more formal or structured way, because now it will become a big business.'' The deal is effective April 1, pending approval by the International Air Transport Association.

LPG president, Mr. Jack Outerbridge said: "We have both the holiday travel and the corporate travel. It is quite a sizeable account. We have contracts with large corporations, where we handle all of their travel.

"We are delighted that Mr. Kitson has agreed to take the travel department over and take our staff. Staff was a principle concern.

"We feel we have found a first class company to take over our very important clients and a very important segment of our business.'' Mr. Outerbridge said that the American Express situation was different. The company has been the representative for the credit card and travellers cheque operations and servicing Hamilton merchants since LPG got into the travel business in the 1950s.

Mr. Outerbridge said: "Kitson is not taking over the American Express part of it. We are advising American Express that we are relinquishing that agency and they will have to make other arrangements.

"We were the full paying agent. We handled everything. We will be giving American Express notice and we will give them enough time to make other arrangements. They will probably employ another group to take it over.'' As of the beginning of April, Kitson will take over the LPG Travel business at its current location in the Beneficial Building on Church Street. Kitson will eventually consolidate the staff with their own five travel staff, once room is made available in their Kitson Building and Windsor Place offices at 18 Queen Street. The new office will have more than a dozen employees.

Mr. Kitson pointed out that a lot of the details of the deal are still to be worked out.

"We need to operate the new travel group out of the Beneficial building for the next three or four months in order to do extensions in Windsor Place. We need to create some more office space. This has all happened very quickly.'' It comes as LPG's long serving travel manager, Mr. Macrae Mitchell, retires at the end of March.